There are two things Noel Sanger credits for his success as an entrepreneur: a desire to create businesses that reflect his love for community and an ability to network with people who share the same values. Those two elements helped launch and grow his latest venture, The Hangout Fitness and Sports, into something that’s as much a community center as a gym. Looking around at the bustling facility is enough to make him tear up.
“When you look at this facility, I say this is the most diverse place in Fort Smith,” he says. “Age-wise, ethnicity-wise, you name it. You come in here, it is a place for everybody. The reason it works is because we have the space and the staff that can take care of everyone.
“You have young kids playing soccer next to women playing tennis. Then you have basketball right over there. You have everybody coming in.”
Noel came to Fort Smith while working in the banking industry, taking an opportunity to lead a local credit union. The move paid off professionally, but also personally, as he quickly fell in love with the city.
“I remember, I originally had honestly no idea where Fort Smith was,” he says. “Came down, absolutely fell in love with it, just had a great time. I remember my first visit here, it was summertime. I was like, ‘What is going on? It’s beautiful here, why is nobody outside?’ And people were like, ‘It’s 110 degrees.’ I’m like, ‘Great point.’”
At the credit union, Noel enjoyed watching local entrepreneurs grow and prosper, and eventually their success sparked an idea for a venture of his own.
“I sat there and I watched all these people doing well in business,” he says. “One day I just thought, ‘I think I could do that.’”
Starting with relatively small ventures — a tanning salon and a dog grooming business — Noel learned the ropes of business ownership. But his lifelong love of sports eventually pointed him toward something bigger.
“I’m a sports guy. I’ve played sports my whole life. I grew up playing basketball, I played soccer in college, my kids all played different sports,” he says. “I saw firsthand how a lot of kids didn’t have an opportunity to train to get to the next level here in Fort Smith. There are some great trainers out there, but there wasn’t a real community-type place.
“I called Mark Kincannon with Resolution Equity Partners, a business brokerage firm here in town. I said, ‘I’m looking for something,’ and he goes, ‘Well, tell me your background.’ I talked about sports and he said, ‘Well, funny you should ask. They got this $2.9 million facility that’s looking to be sold.’ I just kind of laughed and said, ‘I think you’re out of my realm. I appreciate that, but I was looking more for something for $29,000.’”
Nevertheless, the phone call planted a seed, and Noel reached out to restaurateur Juan Barbara and Clint Crossno, two fellow businessmen he thought might want be interested in getting involved.
“Juan and I always believed that there needed to be some type of soccer facility here in Fort Smith,” Noel says. When Clint joined the conversation, he wanted to see the numbers. “I said, ‘There’s no financials. It’s all blue sky.’”
As different as they were, the trio proved to be the right combination of vision, passion, and business chops. Together, they bought the former Fort Smith Athletic Club and began reimagining it as The Hangout Fitness and Sports. To say the 60,000-square-foot space and outdoor grounds were a blank canvas is something of an understatement.
“When we took over, we had trees growing out of the gutters,” Noel says. “We had a clay tennis court with grass growing up through it and the hardcourt tennis courts were also pretty rough.”
The new owners didn’t simply revive the existing amenities; they began rethinking how the spaces could be used. Two tennis courts gave way to soccer, racquetball courts became a half-court basketball training space, and the outdoor clay court was converted to full-court basketball. Tennis remained, sharing space with the increasingly popular sport of pickleball.
Training and coaching options expanded right along with the physical space. Barre, Pilates, and yoga joined the lineup, along with dedicated instruction for a variety of sports. The clientele varies from weekend warriors to young athletes looking to take their performance to the next level. Among the trainers is Ty Kilinc, who has worked with athletes ranging from developing youth to professional and Olympic competitors.
“We brought him over and he started in our gym area, taking up about a quarter of our 8,000-square-foot gym space,” Noel says. “He got so popular, we ended up having to move him; we took one of the tennis courts and turned half of it into a workout facility just for him.”
As if all that were not enough, The Hangout also opened a lounge and social club, giving members a place to grab a post-workout refreshment, or adults a spot to relax. The full-service bar is another example of the community center approach the owners envision for The Hangout — a place to work out, play and simply spend time together.
The ideas have paid off. Noel says the business had about 75 memberships, representing a couple hundred people, at the time of the sale. As improvements were made and new offerings came online, the community responded. Today, The Hangout Fitness and Sports has 900 memberships — 65 percent of them families — representing about 2,000 individuals.
Even though much of the shock has worn off from the transformation, it hasn’t stopped the owners’ idea machine from working overtime. Future plans include adding batting cages, completely overhauling the weight training equipment, and Noel is even nosing around for a potential second location.
No matter how big the business gets, however, Noel says he never wants it to feel corporate or lose its local clubhouse mentality. Any time it starts to feel too much like a job, all he has to do is take five minutes and look around to reconnect with the sense of community that started it all.
“We were about seven months into this venture, and I remember sitting down and just looking around. The basketball courts were packed outside, I think there were about forty kids playing basketball. On the two soccer courts, we had about forty people as well. We had a women’s tennis league going on, so every tennis court was packed. We had the University of Arkansas Fort Smith tennis team here, this is their home court and they were playing.
“And I remember sitting there and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we just changed Fort Smith.’ I remember it so clearly, sitting on a bench right outside the door, thinking of all the people that said Fort Smith cannot do something like this, and we just did it.”
FIND YOUR FIT
From youth sports and performance training to fitness classes, tennis, pickleball, basketball and more, there’s plenty happening at The Hangout Fitness and Sports. Explore programs, memberships, and ways to get involved at thehangoutfs.com.
